ad 'progressed [without his authority]
from one scrivener's shop to another, and at length grew so common that
it was ready to be hung out for one of their figures [_i.e._ shop-signs],
like a pair of indentures.'

{89a} Cf. Sonnet lxix. 12:

To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds.

{89b} For other instances of the application of this epithet to
Shakespeare's work, see p. 179, note 1.

{90} The actor Alleyn paid fivepence for a copy in that month (cf.
Warner's _Dulwich MSS._ p. 92).

{91} The chief editions of the sonnets that have appeared, with critical
apparatus, of late years are those of Professor Dowden (1875, reissued
1896), Mr. Thomas Tyler (1890), and Mr. George Wyndham, M.P. (1898). Mr.
Gerald Massey's _Secret Drama of Shakespeare's Sonnets_--the text of the
poems with a full discussion--appeared in a second revised edition in
1888. I regret to find myself in more or less complete disagreement with
all these writers, although I am at one with Mr. Massey in identifying
the young man to whom many of the sonnets were addressed with the Earl of
Southampton. A short bibliography of the works advocating the theory
that the sonnets were addressed to William, third Earl of Pembroke, is
given in Appendix VI., 'Mr. William Herbert,' note 1.

{93} It has been wrongly inferred that Shakespeare asserts in Sonnets
cxxxv-vi. and cxliii. that the young friend to whom he addressed some of
the sonnets bore his own christian name of Will (see for a full
examination of these sonnets Appendix VIII.) Further, it has been
fantastically suggested that the line (xx. 7) describing the youth as 'A
man in hue, all hues in his controlling' (_i.e._ a man in colour or
complexion whose charms are so varied as to appear to give his
countenance control of, or enable it to assume, all manner of fascinating
hues or complexions), and other applications to the youth of the ordinary
word 'hue,' imply that his surname was Hughes. There is no other
pretence of argument for the conclusion, which a few critics have
hazarded in all seriousness, that the friend's name was William Hughes.
There was a contemporary musician called William Hughes, but no known
contemporary of the name, either in age or position in life, bears any
resemblance to the young man who is addressed by Shakespeare in his
sonnets.

{94} See Appendix VI., 'Mr. William Herbert;' and VII., 'Shakespeare and
the Earl of Pembroke.'

{95a} The full results o